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Squidoo’s wish list

I sent this comment to my 3 Squidoo friends here on MySpace, but than I thought, I’m gonna want to referance this list myself. There aren’t actually very many things on this list that I would use to create Squidoo lenses, however reading the list does spark a few ideas for other topics I’d like to write about, so here is the comment I sent them, posted here for my personal referance:

Seth Godwin (the guy that created Squidoo) sent me an email. He said that people have been requesting lens topics to be made, and he from those requests has made a list of the top 100 most requested lens topics. (Topics that there are currently no lenses for, but that people have asked more than once for others to build). I don’t know if there’s anything on the list that you’d want to build a lens for or not, cause I didn’t read the entire list yet; but I figured it might give you some ideas for new topics to create lenses for, even if there wasn’t anything on the list that you wanted to write about, so, here’s the list that he sent me:

~~Wendy

Feel like building a new lens? Here’s a list Megan and I put together of 100 dream topics.

A Thousand Splendid Suns
Adrianna Costa
Akon
All Natural Vintage Oolong Tea
Authority
Back to Black, by Amy Winehouse
Bebo
Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans
Bon Jovi
Can Stress Turn Your Hair White?
Canon Digital Rebel XTi
Canon PowerShot A550
Canon PowerShot Pro Series
Carrie Fisher
Christopher Hitchens (Author)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Cloverfield
Conn Iggulden
Copyblogger
Crash
Cynthia Nixon
Dailymotion
Daniel Radcliffe
Descargar
Die Hard
E.T.
Easy Tiger, Ryan Adams
Eat, Pray, Love
Facebook
Fergie
Film-Noir
Flip Video Camcorder
Fred Claus
Galilea Montijo
Garry Marshall
Get Smart With Steve Carell
Guitar Hero T-Shirts
Hairspray, the Movie
Hannah Montana
Hot Fuzz
Hotel Rwanda
Hoteldipity
I Know Who Killed Me
Icky Thump
Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur
Is My Boyfriend Making Me Fat?
John Krasinski
Khaled Hosseini
Kim Catrall
License to Wed
Lifehacker
Little Miss Sunshine
Live Earth
Mallu
Maroon 5
Michael Bay
Michael Patrick King
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
My favorite Whole Foods foods
My Mother is Driving me to Drink!Naruto
Nikon D40 6.1MP Digital SLR Camera
Noelia video
Our Love to Admire, by Interpol
Pamela Anderson
Paris Hilton
Photobucket
Problogger
Ratatouille
Rihanna
Rocky
Ron Paul
Sellendipity
Serendipity 3 Frrrozen Hot Chocolate, Yum!
Shakira
Sicko
Skyblog
So You Think You Can Dance
The 4-Hour Workweek
The 5-Factor Diet
The Dangerous Book for Boys
The Diana Chronicles
The Host
The Huffington Post
The Martha’s Vineyard Diet Detox
The Simpsons, the movie
The Truth About My No or Low Carb Diet
Tina Brown
Traveling Wilburys
Truthiness
Unlock Your Creativity
Untitled JJ Abrams movie
Vitter
Water for Elephants
What is the Craziest thing you Have Ever Done in a Car
Yahoomail
Zeitgeist, by The Smashing Pumpkins
10 Places to See in Canada Before You Die
10 Places to See in the UK Before You Die
10 Places to See in the US Before You Die

Narration for Writers Explained

Attention writers! Have you ever wondered what’s the differance between one type of narration and another? Look no farther, I shall explain them all here. Check it out.

http://www.squidoo.com/Narration-for-Writers/

My Website ranks at 32!!!!!

OMG! My Squidoo lense now ranks in at 32 on the Squidoo top 100 list! 32 out of 220,000 lenses! I can’t believe it!

Here it is if you want to check it out:

http://www.squidoo.com/PublishingMethods/

Averages…

I was just reading this blog post:

Reading, writing, and arithmetic

I must say, though the concept is sound, I’m afraid his dollar amounts are a bit off. The average advance for a first novel is $1,000 or less, and it’s rare that you’ll get an advance until after you have a bestseller. For the average author an advance is just a mythical dream they hope to someday be famous enough to aquire.

The average book sales for a first time novel is 500 copies world-wide. This is also the average sales for books that are not first time novels.

To become a best-seller you must sell 10,000 copies per printing, but only a handful of publishers print more than 2,000 copies per printing.

The average writer hits best-seller status with their 9th novel.

Of course these are the AVERAGE figures, which means it’s a half-way point, divided between the highest paid author and the lowest paid author; the highest sales per book vs the lowest sales per book. It’s not uncommon for a first novel to sell 10 copies world wide, but only a rare few ever sell 100,000 world wide, and even less ever hit the million mark.

Ad only those who have already sold over 100,000 copies of a single printing well ever see an advance as astronomical out of proportion as the $100,000 figure he gave you.

He might want to check his facts better before he teaches to many more workshops. It’s wrong for him to be setting up aspireing writers to what well quickly be an earth-shattering heartbreak once they make an attempt to get their first novel published.

This may have been what happened to him, but this is an exception to the rule, not what the average writer can expect.

~~EK

Birds and Roses: My cure for writer’s block

My writing goal is to write between 1,000 to 2,000 words per day. My average per day, is much less… more like 400 – 700 per day, once every three days instead of every day. Well, it’s better than nothing, and I’m still inching my way to my goal.

My problem seems to lie in that I get the urge to write at times when I just can’t write, but than at the time I set aside to write, I’m to bored or restless or want to read or whatever… anything that is not writing basicly.

I’ll be right in the middle of something, say walking my dog, or cleaning the catbox, when this great idea well pop into my head, with not a pen or paper in sight. Than an hour or two later, I’ll finally get to some paper, and I find I can’t think of what I wanted to write down, or else I can’t get it worded right, or worse I’ve forgotten it all together!

I write amazing outlines. You should see the detailed historical timelines I can come up with for my story ideas… than I sit down, my outline in hand, ready to type the story itself and nothing. I’ll just sit staring at a blank screen wondering what to write about.

Than I’ll start typeing away, got a 1,000 words before I know it… WOO-HOO! I’m done for the day! Than I read what I wrote. Not one word of it goes with the book I’m working on; instead it goes with some book idea I gave up on 4 or 5 years ago.

sheesh! Now I have to start all over again, cause those 1,000 words didn’t count!

I find myself doing this all the time… the result is I end up working on 4 maybe 5 stories at any one given time, and never finish them on deadline.

The up side: When I do get finshed, I have 4 or 5 stories finished at the same time.

I’ve got a flower garden… with tall rose bushes over 13 feet tall. There’s one on each side of the path, and they grew up entwining to make a natural archway. Little songbirds sing and twitter all day long. It’s so peaceful and relaxing. There’s these old mossy logs, I sit on to do my writing. I find that if I’m stuck on my typeing on the computer, that the best way for me to get back on focus is to pack up a few pens and a lot of paper and head out and sit in the garden. By the time it’s dark I’ll have 30 or 40 pages written and I get to stay up all night typeing them into the computer. For me that is the best cure for “writer’s block”. I can’t explain it, but I do my best writing and my highest word count writing when sitting in the garden, listen to song birds and writing in longhand.

~~EK

See more progress on: write and publish a book

What do you look for in a book?

I’ve been reading through the threads on the net, and saw a lot of comments about wither or not certain books are worth reading. Well, that got me thinking, we want to write what people want to read, right?

Our goal is to improve our writing so that readers will enjoy what we wright, right? How do we go about improveing our writing? Well, I think the first step is to look at what we ourselves read. So, what is it that you read? Why do you read what you do? What is it that makes certain books enjoyable for you?

When you head to the library or the bookstore or even Amazon.com, what do you look for in a book?

What makes you choose to buy one book and not the other?

Try this excerise and see if it doesn’t help you to become a better writer. Sit down and think about what it is that makes a good book good to you, and write it down. I have just done this, and here is what I came up with:

When in the bookstore or library, the first thing that catches my eye is the cover art, I think about half of my 10, 000+ books I bought for the cover art, without ever reading the blubs or the book for that matter.

For books I actually read, the cover could be a blank white page for all I care… if it’s a good book, I’ll buy it regardless of the cover.

What makes it good for me: characters. I have to have at least one character that I can identify with or fall head over heels in love with or whom I can root for. I tend to favor male MCs over female, prob’ly because I’m a female and I like “falling in love with” the MC.

Second to the characters, I like good “life like” dialouge, and a lot of it. You can’t have a character driven story without dialouge. However, not all dialouge is good dialouge… you start harping out in barely legable ye old English and the book’ll get shelved before I finish the sentance. Make it sound real. You don’t speak in perfect grammar and neither should your characters.

Settings. Settings influance your characters. Settings should be well written and clear, free of confusion. Settings should not take the lime light though unless the setting itself is the MC. Remember that your story is about your characters not the setting, so keep that in balance.

Stories need a beginning and middle and an end, but I like stories best that “don’t quite end”, by that I mean, it leaves an opening hole so that there could be a second, third, or fourth book… in other words it alows the option to continue the story at a later date.

That brings us to what I find most important: a series. I love to read five, six, ten, twenty books about a single character, esp if it’s a character I can identify with.

Another factor that weighs in heavy is the genre of the story; if it’s a gothic romance with a terrified girl and haunted house on the cover, I’ll buy it no matter what it is, just cause I collect gothic romance books, eventually I read them, saddly only a few are actually worth reading, but the cover art was worth the price of the book.

The genre I enjoy reading the most is science fiction, followed by mystery, than horror, and lastly romance. Action and adventure stories are great, but there are so few writers that can really pull it off. Fantasy I like IF I can find any that is original… they all seem to be rip-offs of each other, they all sound alike, like they were all written by the same author… it gets boreing after a while.

~~EK

See more progress on: improve my writing

Self Publish? Vanity Press? Traditonal Publisher? Something Else?

A question I see time and time again is: Is *name of business here* a self publisher, vanity press, or traditional publisher? How do I tell the differance?

While there are many branches of the publishing tree, these 3 are the big limbs, from which all the branches shoot off of. Here is how to tell them apart:
a self publisher, is an author who gets a business license, buys the ISBN #s, hires a printing press (print shop/printer) to print the books, than sells them themself… the author keeps 100% of the profits, because no one pays royalities; you keep 100% of the copyright (which btw, does not cost a penny)… you market the book and distribute it through local bookstores and Amazon.com

a vanity press is a print shop/printer/printing press, that does that for you, they usually ask you to pay money for them to edit your MS, they also chagre you if you want a color cover, (often they charge you for such things as “the right to keep your copyright”, or the ISBN #, in addition to the cost of everything else they chage) and than pays you a percentange (royalty), after you first pay them for the books… the royalty they pay, though it may sound high, is actually very low, because you don’t see that money until after they have deducted what you “owe them” for printing the books… in short, they make money, while you go broke, and you may or may not get to keep the rights to your book, depending on how much money you paid to buy your own rights back from them… you market the book and distribute it through local bookstores and Amazon.com

a traditional publisher, hires editors who read your MS which you send to them; they recive thousands of MSs each week, so it may take up to 2 years before they get around to reading it; after they read it, they either reject it or accept it; if they accept it, you well be sent a contact (and often with a recommendation that you go over it with your literay agent/lawyer before you sign it). Once you sign the contract and send it back, than the publisher’s laywer checks it to be certain that all is in order (and done legally). The publisher is given the tempory copyright allowing them to print and distribute your book to the public… they hire and editor to type set and spell check your MS, than they hire an artist to create the cover art, they distribute the book to bookstores worldwide, you never own them a cent, they pay you royalties

in other words:

self publishing is you starting your own business (a publishing house) and earning an income

vanity press is you doing a lot of hard work, getting your book printed, and getting scammed out of the money that should be yours, while they get rich and leave you with nothing

traditional publishing is you hireing a business to to the work for you and you both earn an income

I hope this helps

~~EK

The Slush Pile

I just read this:

The shocking truth about the slush pile, where she tells her horror story of having to read the junk that makes up what editors call the slush pile.

Here is my answer: 

I know what you mean. I own a publishing house. Our books are all written in-house (by staff members) so we never had to worry about having a slush pile of submissions before. Two years ago we planned on adding a fiction magazine. To date we have yet to start the magazine. Why? Because of the hundreds of emails we get, we have yet to get a single submission that:

1) meets our guidelines

and

2) is legable enough to publish

I’t's pitiful really. We had such hopes for our fiction magazine. If only we had enough good stories submitted so we could go to press with it.

The problem I’m seeing is that most writers start out with:

<i>”I posted this on my blog and my readers loved it so I’m sending it in for your to publish.”</i>

or

<i>”I write for this great RPG and I can do stupendous first person accounts for my super great characters, that I just know you’ll love, even though they are from Harry Potter, I’m sure it’ll be alright if you publish my story.”</i>

Okay, first off, we don’t publish fan-fiction and secondly, how many people read your blog? Your mom and a few friends, right?

The problem I see (at least in our slush pile) is that every Tom, Dick, and Harry who owns a blog, thinks they are a writer, and, though they can post on a blog, they have a long ways to go before what they are blogging, can even begin to pass off as a great novel.

The hardest part of being an editor (for me anyways), is haveing to tell people this. I mean, I know what it’s like to get rejection slips from editors, I’ve got a stack of them myself. I was writing long before I was editing, I know how much it hurts to hear the truth about what you’ve written. Now I find myself being the one writing those rejection letters, and believe me, it’s not fun.

~~EK

Best thing for any writer!

Joining an online writer’s group was the best thing I ever did to boost my self esteem as a writer. I ended up joining about 20 differant online writing groups, I visit most of them only once every 4 or 5 months, however NaNoWriMo.org is one that I am on almost every week. The folks there are great, we share ideas, set writing goals, and of course there’s the NaNoWriMo 50k writing challange each November.

My advice for anyone looking to join an online writer’s group is that they must check out NaNoWriMo.org.

~~EK

See more progress on: join a writing group

Need to Kill Writer’s Block? Kill a Character.

Do you find you have a great story going,  than suddenly without warning writer’s block stops you dead in your tracks? I have found that if you want to kill writer’s block, kill a character. The death of a character (one already in use or one you created just to kill) changes everything in the story, and gives you new challanges.

In my books, when in doubt, I create a new character, and than bring back my psycopathic serial killer (The Red Dragon) who is supposed to be in an aysulum but some how escaped, killed the new character and left the body all over The Manor. The result is Roderic gets to go off on one of his crazed “my house kills people” frenzies (I have so much fun writing those!), while everyone else racks their brains trying to figure out how the killer escaped, why did he kill this person, how did he get back in the asylum, and who the hell is the dead person anyways?

As I never know who the “new” character was, and the body is chopped up beyond recognision, and I don’t know why he did it, I therefor get to solve the mystery right along with the characters.

yep, killing a character always works for me, ever when I never “met” the character before.

~~EK

Choosing a Topic to Write About: Are You Enthusiastic About the Idea?

Writers are sentimental about their writing, but are they enthusiastic about it? You have found a topic to write about, but you don’t know if it’s one you really want to write about. How can you tell if you should use it as your next topic? Just ask yourself this: Am I sentimental or enthusiastic about the idea? Does it matter?

 

Do not mistake sentiment for enthusiasm. They are not the same things. Don’t believe me? Let’s ask the dictionary:

Sentiment: noun

1.) Tender, romantic, or nostalgic feeling or emotion

2.) A personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty

Enthusiasm: noun

1.) A feeling of excitement

2.) Overflowing with enthusiasm

3.) A lively interest

A tender romantic emotion that evokes nostalgia vs. a lively interest filled with excitement. So how does this affect you the writer? Think of it this way: You may have sentiment for an old faded Valentine, but do you have enough enthusiasm about it to write a story about the Valentine and how it came to mean so much to you? It holds a warm place in your heart, and you well never throw it away, but do you burn with the feverish desire to tell the world about it?

 

Now think about your readers. Your reader has no sentimental attachment to your Valentine, if they saw it, they’d probably toss it in the trash, for it means nothing to them at all. Would they read about it? Well that depends on how you write the story, doesn’t it? If you spend you’re times mooning over the Valentine and its sentimentalness, most likely your reader well toss the story aside calling it a load of sentimental tripe.

 

Sentimental tripe. Yep, that’s what kills many a story. People don’t want to read sentimental tripe that moons and simpers over days gone by and the writer’s obsession with their own past. The reader wants to know the hows and whys behind the Valentine. They want the facts, every juicy detail. The Valentine in and of itself is not enough to keep the reader reading, there has to be something more. Think of the Valentine as the skeleton, the bones of the story upon which you must build up the muscle and flesh to give it substance. Write a story about the sentiment of the Valentine and bore your readers to tears. How do you correct that? With enthusiasm. Question is, do you have it?

 

Your reader wants to know how the Valentine became sentimental. They want to know how the Valentine came into the possession of your character. They want to read about the chain of events that caused it to become a sentimental item. Write a story about the Valentine and how it came to be important TO YOUR MAIN CHARACTER. Instead of sentimental mooning you have vibrant enthusiasm. You have a character, not yet turned sentimental. Now the reader has a reason to want to read about the Valentine. They can see a character that has feelings and emotions just like them. They can become the character and feel what the character feels when he feels it.

 

But are you truly enthusiastic about your idea? Do you burn with the desire to write it? Do you feel that you cannot exist until you have spread the word throughout the entire world? Does a fiery passion to tell everyone everywhere about your story, drive you forward? That is enthusiasm, and that is what you need to tell a great story. Leave the sentiment behind, and let your story burn with passion, let that passion fill your soul; pour your soul into the story.

 

 

Bloggers are not writers

Writers ask me this: “Why was my work rejected, all my blog buddies loved it!”. So, what? Just because you blog doesn’t mean you can write. Being a blogger does not make you a writer. Being a blogger make you a blogger. Same with RPG. RPGers hack out a few phrases of fan-fiction dialouge for a single character and it goes to their head and they go off telling every one they are a writer. Like hell they are. Bloggers and RPGers fan themselves with vain praises than bitch and moan when editor after editor throws the work back in their face and tells them it’s no good. They can’t understand why. Why? I’ll tell you why. The differance between a writer and a blogger/RPGer is the same as the differance between a tiny stream and the Grand Caynon.

This guy sums it up nicely. According to Zoltan, the writing squirrel:

The Rules- If you write, they must be followed.

Here are the rules I believe in, and that I use when I write and critique:

 

1- Please use proper grammar. If you dont care enough about your work to take the time to polish it and make it right, then I dont care enough to read it.

2- Please use proper punctuation. Same as above.

3- Please dont tell me its my fault that I “Didn’t get it.” Its the writers responsibility to make me understand, and to make me feel pleased as a reader. Period.

4- Please know how to write. You must understand exposition, good dialogue, pacing, plot and all of the other elements that are mandatory for a good story.

5- Edit before you post.

6- Show me, dont tell me.

7- Please avoid first person, at all costs, unless your writing skills are excellent. “I said…” “I feel that…” “I walked along…” When done poorly, first person seems like a list of actions, or at best, a live journal entry. Use third person, please

 

Once the above rules have been met, the more serious and constructive criticism comes into play:

8- Take your time. Make each sentence say something, and further more, mean something to the next sentence, to the paragraph, to the next paragraph, to the page, to the chapter, and to the whole story.

9- You must edit your work. Read it aloud to yourself. Surprisingly, that points out a lot of mistakes that only reading it wont do. Go paragraph by paragraph. Does it make sense? Did you contradict something you said or established earlier? Is it necessary?

10- Dont drag something out. Describe a setting, give us a mental picture, and move on. Find a happy medium between over-description and over-simplification, and stay there.

11- Write honest dialogue. You should never write something that you cant picture saying. I dont mean content wise, im talking about form:

-”Would thee accompany me to thine own home?” That makes me cringe.

-”Can I walk you home?” “Would you care for an escort home?” those are much better.

Also, dont write in slang. Its sloppy, and no one wants to read it.

12- Write good characters. Who am I investing my emotions in? Why should I do so? Who can I identify with? One sided, stereotypical cardboard characters are far too common. Give people personality; humanize them; and above all, make them evoke some sort of emotional response from me, the reader. Action and words should tell us all we need to know about them, not by the writer describing the words or actions.

Show different sides of your characters. Good guys do bad things, and bad guys usually have one or two decent qualities. Show us exactly that, and make it seem more real to us. We need to identify with everyone you write, even if its in some small way.

13- Avoid clichÃ?. Tempting bar wench’s; Silent, brooding men at arms; Young farm boys that hold the key to everything; The wise old wizard who helps a clueless groups of would be hero’s along; The evil tyrant, who lives only to do evil deeds…Sure, you have to tread on familiar ground sometimes, but be original. Write it in your own way.

14- Establish a setting. Can we feel the world youre creating? Are we drawn in by it, or are you simply telling us about it?

15- What is the point of the story? You dont have to say that right away, but foreshadowing is good. A hint of what is to come. Does everything you have written, serve the story as a whole? You can always go back and add some foreshadowing that will serve a purpose later.

16- Dont lose focus. Know what youre writing, where youre heading, and have a reasonable idea about where you will end up. Then, spend the length of your story taking us there. Not too fast as to miss things, or make them seem trivial, but not too slow as to bet anxious or bored.

17- Please be subtle. Dont tell us everything straight out. Dont be blatant about things. Let us discover things on our own, even if we draw the wrong conclusion. Dont make things over obvious if youre waiting to give them away or explain them down the road. Write it, then let it breathe.

18-Know your story. Why is Tom angry? Where did Alanna get her name? “Where did Krieger get his sword? Nothing just happens. You dont have to tell us everything, and in some cases you flat out shouldnt, but you should always know and from that knowledge, you will write a better story. Keep us guessing and wondering at the little things. Dont spoon feed us everything. Its like a musician explaining his song; In the same way that what he knows about its origin made it what it is, while the way I interpreted it made it my own.

19-Make sure you are consistent throughout your work. Dont jump back and forth between tenses; dont insert plot devices simply to give the characters something to do;

20- Be mindful of the POV (Point of view) in which youre writing. When writing from different characters POV’s, make sure that what they are thinking is true to them. Make them have their own personalities. Each person should have their own views, rationale, and way of thinking. Your main character should be the POV you use the most, although switching to others is good from time to time. It keeps things fresh, and can add mystery, especially if you show a POV from a less than favorable character or a villain.

21- Stay true to the genre youre writing in. Dont be clichÃ? and unoriginal, just be reasonable and give the reader something in the ballpark of what they expect. Dont add a robot into a fantasy story. For the most part, stick with convention.

22- Themes. All good stories will represent how you view things, and how you feel about the world around you. What is the theme of your story? Does the tone lend itself to the theme? As a reader, if I identify with the theme or message, I will surely want to read on, and will most likely enjoy doing so.

23- Plot. Is there conflict? Is there tension? Do the characters actually serve a purpose? the structure should look like this: A conflict arises, things go right, things go wrong, the characters react, things conclude, then you wrap it all up. That is obviously a loose structure, but basically it holds true. The fun part is fleshing those parts out, and adding your personal touches in between them.

24- End your chapters in a dynamic way. Whether with an event, a revelation, or a dramatic sentence or two, make me say “Ok, ill read just one more chapter.” Thatâs just a thing I like to do, and further more, that I like to read.

 

A strong theme, an engrossing plot, proper structure and form, identifiable and human characters, a familiar setting, and an attractive style; these are all needed with no exception.

 

While most of these are concrete rules of writing, some of them arenât, and all of them are my opinions. My opinions may not be shared by all. Then again, if someone doesnât think that the above needs to be followed, they most likely should be writing in the first place.

12:37 PM – 4 Comments – 4 Kudos – Add Comment

He doesn’t say if he was the creator of this list or not, but I’m assuming that he is. I’ve been telling writers this same thing for years. Glad to see others have a head on their shoulders.

Are bloggers writers? Yes writers can be bloggers, but think of it this way:

How many blogs did  you take home from the library last week?

~~EK

Star Log’s Blog Carnival for Writers

I have spent the last couple of hours browsing through Blog Carnivals. I love them.  They are such a great way to find new blogs to read. Well, I submitted several posts from Star Log to some of the carnivals. When browseing the carnival index though, I was disapointed to find that more than half of those aimed at writers have been shut down and are no longer taking new submissions.

In light of that info, I am now starting a new one, to be posted on an ongoing basis here at Star Log. I have decided to hold 12 carnivals a year, one each month. Submissions are open and accepted year ’round.

The overall theme is blog posts of interest to writers. What I am looking for are posts (written by you and posted on your blog), that offer advice to writers of all levels. The prime focus being on fiction stories, though all advice for writers is accepted. Posts on “general” writing topics accepted each month. Additionaly, I’d like to have a sub-theme each month as follows:

January: Writing Mysteries

February: Writing Romance

March: Writing Children’s Fiction

April: Writing Fantasy

May: Writing Science Fiction

June: Writing Pirate Fiction

July: Writing Action/Adventure

August: Writing Gothic

September: Writing High Fantasy

October: Writing Horror

November: Writing Family Memoires

December: Writing Holiday Fiction

Submissions are due by the last day of the previous month. Blog listings will be posted the first week the month. Send your submissions here.

You can copy the following tag to add to your blog so people will have a link back to find your listing with Star Log’s Blog Carnival For Writers:

Conventional Advice that Didn’t Work for Her (or Me Either!)…

Patricia A. Duffy says that when it comes to writing,  “Conventional Advice Wouldn’t Work for Me”.  After reading her article, I have to say that basicly, she has said pretty much what I would have said, and what I do say, whenever someone asks me.

According to Patricia A. Duffy:

1) Write every day.

This piece of advice is repeated in almost every book on “how to write.” Maybe some people need this sort of discipline, but I would find it counterproductive. Sometimes I write feverishly every day. Sometimes real life intervenes. I have a demanding job and a family. If I believed I had to write every day, even when I absolutely had no time, I’d quickly grow to hate writing and I’d stop doing it. Mostly, I have more ideas than I have time to process, so “forcing myself to write” is not a problem. And during those periods when “real life” heats up and I can’t write, I don’t feel any guilt. Why should I? Writing isn’t a religious penance or a health routine. It’s something I enjoy.

My responce to what she says:

You’ve heard it preached from the pulpit of every sacred book on writing: WRITE EVERY DAY!!!

Now ask yourself this: What does writing mean to you? Is writing a hobby or a career? How did you answer?

A hobby?

If you think of writing as a hobby, than who cares when you write? No one. If you write as a hobby, than who cares if your writing gets sloppy? No one. If you write as a hobby, than who cares if you ever get published? No one. If you write as a hobby, than by all means writer seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, because you know what? If you are writing because writing is a hobby, no one cares. Why? Because hobby writers write for their own pleasure. If they get published, it’s a great big WOO-HOO! for themselves and their family. But very few hobby writers ever get published. Why? Because they are content to post their stories on message boards and web-sites and blogs. They are happy to see their work on the internet. Writing after all is just a hobby to them. They are content with what they do.  So, for writers who write as a hobby, it is not important when they write, because their family is not dependant on the writing. Just search on Google for Fan-Fiction. Millions of stories are posted all over the internet, but because they are written by hobby writers, tthose stories well never be printed in books. They well never be published, but no one cares, not even the writer. So why than does it matter if the hobby writer writes every day?

Let’s look at the other side of this story.

Now ask yourself this once again: What does writing mean to you? Is writing a hobby or a career? How did you answer?

A career?

I ask you: What is your day job? Do you  wait tables? Drive a school  bus? Are you a cashier at the local super market? Maybe you teach high-school geography? Whatever it is that you do for your day job, ask yourself this: How many days do you work each week? A few well say three, some well say four, almost all of you well say five. By law your employer is required to give you at least two days off each week. That’s a law. That law is enforced. If an employer asks you to work more than five days a week, they are required to pay you time and a half. That too is a law. Why? Because even the government knows that you can’t get the job done if you are not given a day or two of rest. If you work seven days a week, you well run down, wear out and get sloppy. Your work well suffer, because you didn’t get a day off.

So, we come back to your answer: Why do you write? Hobby or career? If you said career, than you know that being a writer is just like every other 9 to 5 job. Nine o clock you sit down at your desk and you start writing. Around noon you take an hour break for lunch. After lunch it’s back to your desk to write until five. Five o clock comes around and no matter how compelled you are to keep writing, you put down your pen, turn off the light and don’t go back to your desk again until tomorrow morning when nine o clock rolls around again. Like any other job, you take the weekend off. Why? Because for you writing is more than a hobby. For you writing is what puts food on the table. For you writing is what puts clothes on your children. Writing just paid for your teenager’s PS3. Writing pays the mortage. Writing pays the vet bills caused by the recent pet-food recall. You write because writing is your career, your job, your livelyhood. For you writing is not a hobby. You can’t afford to let you writing get sloppy and you know that, which is why you also know that it is foolish for you or any other writer to think that it is in your best interest to write every day.

And that is  why I do not write every day.

Moving on to myth #2…

According to Patricia A. Duffy:

2. Don’t Edit Until the First Draft is Done.

I edit obsessively as I go along. I like rewriting things. I can’t imagine another way to write and would be utterly incapable of completing that first draft if I didn’t do it this way.

My responce to what she says:

This, I think, depends on the writer and what they are writing about at the time. Personaly I do not believe in editing as you write, as a general rule. Why? I find that when I am writing, I  write better if I don’t stop. I have learned to ignore typos and spelling mistakes, to turn a blind eye to bad grammar, and to not listen when my mind says I should go back and re-write what I just wrote. Why? Because if I stop, it creates a speed bump. That speed bump slows me down and causes me to go lose track of what it was I was writing. So I find myself going back to where I had stopped, because I have to re-read what I wrote several times before I can remember where it was I was going with that train of thought. In a sence by stopping to edit while I was writing, I have now derailed my writing train, and put it back on a new track, and it just can’t get back onto that old track, because the old track for some odd reason is no longer there. On a road, a speed bump just jostles your car a bit and make you slow down, but on a train track, that same little speed bump not only jostles the train, but knocks it off track and sends it flying into the oncoming train on the other track. That speed bump is now a mangled mess of crumpled train cars, which ow must be towed away and tossed into  a junk heap. A huge rusted junk heap towering high above your head. The next thing you know you can’t write anything at all because all there is is a pile of mangled wreckage. You have hot a writer’s block.

So, where are we now? Well, for me, stopping to edit while I’m still writing is the deadliest thing that can happen while I’m writing. Usually, but not always. This is just me though, and as I said, all writers are differant.

Moving on…

According to Patricia A. Duffy:

3. Use Note cards or Notebooks to Organize Ideas

Even the thought of using index cards to organize fiction ideas is almost enough to make me run screaming into traffic. In my mind, these little cards will forever be associated with undergraduate term papers. I don’t use notebooks because I hate to write longhand. I do all my writing on the word processor — even background notes for novels. Actually, I prefer to do background for novels as short stories, even lame short stories with no chance of selling. I see things better that way.

My responce to what she says:

As most of you know, I never went to school. I can’t identify with term papers because I’ve never had one, let alone seen one, and I’m not realy sure what they are, except that everyone who talks about school talks about term papers too. I’m not sure what an undergraduate is, I’ll look it up next time I’ve got my dictionary at hand. For those who have followed my posts on the net since 1997, you already know that when I joined the internet world, it was my first time typing. I had never used a keyboard before in my life. Likewise, I had also never learned how to spell. I wrote at that time in what I have since been told is a form of a “native lingo of my own invention, cause by lack of previous contact with humans”. In 1997, I first I joined the internet, and became an over night celebrity, not because I posted on every forum and chat room I could find, but because people were fascinated by my complete and total lack of any ability to spell. In the years since that time, my fan following grew to a cult status as people set out to teach me how to spell via online forums.

Than came a revilation to the world, that no one had befor known: My books, the Twighlight Manor seires, several thousand pages, and countless drafts of each, had never seen typewritter, I had written all of them in longhand. The manuscipts where totally written in bright colored notebooks with Lisa Frank art on the covers: thousands of them. Some 40 boxs worth of notebooks, stacked floor to ceiling. Noetbooks that I have been writing in since 1978. Thirty years worth of notebooks.

Today, I still write my books in longhand. I still hand write all of my manuscripts in bright colored children’s note books. To date, I have only ever written one outline. I have never used index cards. I do not type my manuscripts until after haveing hand written several drafts. I do not organize my ideas, my ideas flow from my mind at a rapid rate, and I write them as they come. No notes. No note taking. They are not my style.  They do not work for me.

And finally we come to:

According to Patricia A. Duffy:

4. Keep a Story Circulating until it Sells.

This is another piece of almost universal advice that I don’t follow. I tend to select my markets rather carefully. If something is rejected at the market I’ve thought most probable for it, I will normally only try it on one or two other markets before giving up (or in some cases no other markets). Although there are a lot of magazine markets for speculative short fiction, there are actually relatively few professional markets for speculative short fiction of any given type. I guess my economics training makes me weight the possible benefit (payment for a story) by my subjective evaluation of the “odds” of being published in that magazine. If the weighted payoff is less than the postage, I put the story in a drawer and work on another one.

My responce to what she says:

In some cases, this is true, in others it is not.

Some times I write for copyrighted characters not of my own making. For these stories there is only one publisher that I can legally send the stories to. If they reject the story, than that’s it. It can’t be sent to anyone else.

More often I write stories of characters of my own invention, and for these, I can choose any publisher I damn well please. I can also choose who I DO NOT want to publish it. Than again I can also choose to do what I usually do, and that is to self publish my stories. That is how I came to own my own publishing house. It is through owning my publishing house that I came to become an editor. Today I am a writer, a publisher, and an editor, because I reserved the right to choose when, where, and to whom I sent my manuscripts too: no one!

Well, that is my take on what Patricia A. Duffy says that when it comes to writing,  “Conventional Advice Wouldn’t Work for Me”. 

~~EK

Info for Romance

As you know I am always seeking out blogs and posts that are useful for writers. Today I found this one which I liked, and had to help promote. I hope you find it helpful:

Rules

April 11th, 2007

There are a couple of different places in blog land talking about rules.  Over at Dear Author, Jane raises some valid opinions about things like rape in romances, abuse, and infidelity.

PBW has another John and Marcia post up…  ;o) if you read PBW’s blog much, you’ll get an idea of what she thinks about rules.

Several authors and readers have apparently done some blogging about the rules of romanceland.  This is always an interesting topic to me…for several reasons.  It can be (usually at the same time) eye opening and entertaining to read the various viewpoints.  I think that I could have somebody summarize some of the blogs and I could tell you whether it was an author that wrote it, or a reader, just by the tone.

Authors don’t want to be told what to write.  (Nope, can’t say I blame them)

Readers don’t want to have surprises in their romances.  By surprises, I mean things like the hero sleeping around, the heroine sleeping around, the heroine getting raped, some sort of infidelity taking place.  (Can’t blame them either…there are certain things that I absolutely hate to read)…

Info for Romance Writers…

As you know I am always seeking out blogs and posts that are useful for writers. Today I found this one which I liked, and had to help promote. I hope you find it helpful:

Rules

April 11th, 2007

There are a couple of different places in blog land talking about rules.  Over at Dear Author, Jane raises some valid opinions about things like rape in romances, abuse, and infidelity.

PBW has another John and Marcia post up…  ;o) if you read PBW’s blog much, you’ll get an idea of what she thinks about rules.

Several authors and readers have apparently done some blogging about the rules of romanceland.  This is always an interesting topic to me…for several reasons.  It can be (usually at the same time) eye opening and entertaining to read the various viewpoints.  I think that I could have somebody summarize some of the blogs and I could tell you whether it was an author that wrote it, or a reader, just by the tone.

Authors don’t want to be told what to write.  (Nope, can’t say I blame them)

Readers don’t want to have surprises in their romances.  By surprises, I mean things like the hero sleeping around, the heroine sleeping around, the heroine getting raped, some sort of infidelity taking place.  (Can’t blame them either…there are certain things that I absolutely hate to read)…

What Does “Non-Genre” Mean?

Many publications say they only accept “Non-Genre Fiction”. A common question writers ask is: “What is Non-Genre Fiction? Doesn’t all fiction have a genre?” I had just read this post and noticed a debate over what is the meaning of Genre Fiction VS Non-Genre Fiction had begun on it’s comments.  Being an editor, I think I can be of help here. So, here is my answer to that question. I hope that some of you find it helpful when submitting your future stories to publishers.When a publication says, “they’re non-genre focused”, they mean that they only want literary fiction and will automatically refuse all stories that a genre driven. A genre driven story is one that falls under the following:

Romance

Fantasy

Sci-fi

Horror

(and the many other such genres out there)

Genre driven stories are focused largely on promotion of their genre and the story focuses totally on that genre. I.e., a romance focuses on a girl’s romantic infatuation; a fantasy will focus on the life of elves wizards and he-men type characters fighting evil in a epic quest; sci-fi focuses on alien life forms traveling from one planet to the next and other such sci-fi type things; horror focuses on scaring the pants off the reader

When a publisher say “they’re non-genre focused” they want to see a slice-of-life story about the day (or week or year) in the life of so-and-so… this is what is known as non-genre or literary fiction. The story focuses on real-life type characters in real life type situations; stories that real like they could be the life of the guy next door or the girl down the road. Non-genre stories tell a story that is not dependant on a fantasy quest or the eloquent narration describing the alien landscape or the steamy sex-scenes. They simply tell a story about life and thus have no genre.

Well, that’s what I see it to mean. Feel free to comment on your own veiws as to the meaning of “non-genre”.

~~EK

Happy Easter from EelKat, Moonsnails, and the Vampire Easter Minions!

Happy Easter from EelKat, Moonsnails, and the Vampire Easter Minions! May they inspire you to write about dancing vampire bunnys!

 

EelKat

Moonsnails Magazine

“Where reality becomes a dream & dreams become reality.”

Great Bit of Advice for Us Writers.

I
have just come across this amazing article for writers, and had to help promote it. I pasted it here for you to read. Be sure to check out the link back to the original blog and read the other articles they got up.

  

  

Creativity, quantity and showing off

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 in Chillout & Ambient music., Design and Art., Writing., Uncategorized

It seems lately, that I have been getting quite a few emails and comments from people saying that they are surprised at how fast I am at releasing new material, or how much stuff I am creating. I briefely addressed a few of these in my comments to Amber Erin, but I thought I would expand it and use it as a post.

(1.) Write everything down. ~ Or at least document the idea somehow. I know a lot of artists and designers suggest keeping a sketchbook with you. But my usual day doesn’t allow me to carry something around with me. So, most of my ideas end up on scraps of paper and napkins. Then if I really need them to stick around for awhile I put them in a notebook for future reading. Really, document everything. If the idea doesn’t cross your mind again it is lost. You need to put it somewhere where you can see it again, or at least think on it more. Most of the time I might be able to keep a vague notion of the original idea, but the colors or the layout is lost on me. Writing it down is the one thing that will keep the idea or design fresh in my head.

(2.) Show people you work.

 ~ Almost all of my work is for public consumption. Very rarely do I create for my personal viewing or pleasure. Even if I make something that will directly benefit my personal life (for instance, the October sounds Lovely project) it still gets released to the public for their use. The more you get your art or writing or music out there the more people recognise your name or style. If you write then start a blog or find a e-zine that will take your submissions. If you illustrate or draw, then get an online portfolio or spend some money on a website. If you do photography then dig into Flickr or some other online portfolio. If you make music then grab a myspace music account or Purevolume or something. And you don’t have to give everything away free. If it is good, charge for it. People will pay if they like it or feel they can use it. Just get it out there. Get your name out there. And don’t feel you have to release a full project every time. Sometimes I really enjoy releasing something in parts. If you can get a partial project done faster and out to your fans, you can keep their attention.

(3.) Feed your creative brain.

~ It will grow. Find books on your favorite subject. Or seek out the (inevitable) hundred sites out there for your hobby. Put your brain through some schooling. Go to a concert or a gallery opening. Go sign up for a free class. Or even better, ask someone if you can tag along with them for a few days. A few hours with an artist doing what you want to do is priceless. And do other creative things. Draw, sculpt, plink around on a piano, write a poem. The more you engage your brain, the more you will keep it strong and alert for your next project.

(4.) Set aside some time to create.

~ You need to create if you are going to be creative. But that takes time. You need to carve out some sort of free time for your hobby or talent. Even if it is ten minutes before bed to write a poem or taking a lunch break to sketch a picture, or an evening a week with your instrument of choice, quality time is very helpful. The more time you devote to being creative, the more quality stuff you will output. Budget your week so that you can get a few hours here and there to make things.

(5.) Get a second opinion.

~ Not everyone likes every thing. If your friends don’t like the music you make, take it to someone else. Every niche out there has a fan base. No matter what you are creating, no matter how experimental or out of the box it is, there will be someone out there who really loves it. Find those people and show them your creative side. Don’t quit just because someone says they don’t like your art or writing. Keep doing it and eventually you will find the perfect group of people just like you who are excited about your work.

(6.) Save your leftovers.

~ I always have leftover design stuff. If you designed something with a red flag and eventually decided to drop the flag keep it in a side folder. Eventually you might use it, or be inspired by it. Keep a folder or a sketchbook or a file that has all your leftovers from previous projects. I have a whole folder of sounds that I are leftovers from my music. A breakbeat here, a string part there, and a bassline from somewhere else and suddenly I have the makings of a new song. Keep everything, you might just use it some day.

(7.) Find your heroes.

~ No matter what you are doing or what your hobby involves, there probably is someone out in the world that is already doing it. Find those people. Find the heroes of your trade or hobby that have made your jaw drop with their work. Don’t copy them but let them inspire you and give you something to beat. Every great work has been created while standing on the backs of giants.

(8.) Decompartmentalize (put things together). ~

 This is one of the things that I am really trying to work at in my life and work. I tend to separate everything and put each in their own catagories. So, by forcing myself to combine music and design or writing and illustration (or all 4 together) I am driving my creative brain into new areas. Think multi-media. Learn to combine things that usually wouldn’t go together. Design a new cookbook or do an illustrated music project or photograph something and write about it. Learn to experiment and put things together.

(9.) Limit your self (give yourself constraints).

~ I find creativity thrives in limited environments. Necessity is the mother of invention. Put limitations on what you are creating. Give the project some rules. For instance, maybe you could do a whole series of paintings in a specific color and specific size (all in blue at 12 inches each). Or make a music project in just the key of E. Or write a series of poems with a specific rhythm or count (haiku or limericks). You would be surprised at what comes out when you make your brain work within certain constraints.

(10.) Learn to market yourself.

~ Do things that will draw attention to your creations. Get business cards with your online portfolio address. Send post cards to people. Set up a booth at a trade show or an art show. Look into getting gallery time. Find radio stations that will play your music. With the net and a little creativity (which you already have) you can put your name and project in front of millions of people. It doesn’t take much time or money to launch a successful project.

So, those aren’t perfectly written, but I hope they help stir your creative brain a bit. There is so much you can do with just a little bit of time and effort. Life is to short to get bored. Go make something.

z.

Now I ask you, wasn’t that a great article?

~~EK

testing tags

having a problem getting posts to show up… testing to see if tags are working yet

Attack of the POD People! They are not evil.

Are you a self publisher? Maybe you have a manuscript you want published, but you are not sure if self-publishing is right for you? I’m a self publisher myself and I’m always looking for ways to improve, so as you can expect I spend a lot of my “blog reading time” looking for blogs that help writers in general and self-publishers esp. Well, today I came across a new blog I hadn’t found before. My search lead me to this post:

POD is not Vanity is not Self Publish

April 1st, 2007 · No Comments

POD is a technology. It’s a way to print books. It’s quite useful for printing small quantities, particularly if there is intermittent demand. LOTS of publishers who are not vanity houses or scam mills use POD technology. University presses spring to mind, as do very small limited runs of very tightly focused books. POD is not evil.

Vanity presses can use POD technology OR they can use webfeed technology. Vanity presses are essentially printers with some support staff. They’ll help you print up nice editions of whatever you want. You pay for this. It’s called vanity because they don’t acquire the book. Acquire means there is an editorial staff choosing particular books to publish. Vanity houses do not maintain lists, issue catalogs or sell books in bookstores. Vanity presses are not evil

Self publishers can use POD technology or webfeed technology. Self publishers are not vanity presses in the everyday sense of the word. They are “vanity” in the sense that there isn’t an acquisition but the two phrases are used to mean different things in publishing. Lots of people self publish for a lot of reasons. Self publishing is not evil.

POD/scam mills are companies set up to persuade you, the author, that printing your book with their company is the equivalent to having it acquired by a publisher. They charge you money. Unlike a respectable vanity press, they don’t copy edit or produce high quality products. They are out to make money on volume. They prey on author’s insecurities and lack of knowledge. POD/scam mills are the scum of the earth.

Whether a company is the scum of the earth depends on how they run their business, not how they print their books.

There are several POD companies that do not try to persuade you that you have but to print up books with them to be on your way to fame and glory. Lulu and CafePress come to mind. There are others I’m sure.

– Miss Snark, the literary agent

[via To Publish a Book]

→ No CommentsTags: Self-Publishing · Articles · Books

to the authour of this post, I say:

bravo!

*insert clapping smilie here*

every one with a manuscript should read this post, if you know someone with a manuscript pass this on to them.

~~EK

Why Do Editors Reject MSs?

I just read this:

Treat your editors like the coach from any sports team because the editor knows their audience and only rejects writing with a good reason–even if you never learn the specifics.

Seemed like good advice, though I know nothing of sports or coaches. I do know, however, that editors have no choice but to reject 90% of what they recieve. Why? Well, for every book they have the physical ability to publish each year they receive 1,000 or more manuscripts. Many publishing houses only print 12 new books a year, one each month, and yet they receive ten times that many manuscripts in a single day. What does that mean for you the writer? That means that your manuscript had better be damn good if you want it to punch out the compatition and make it onto the editor’s desk. Once on the editor’s desk it had better glow if it wants to get picked for publication.

Why do editors reject manuscripts? Well as the editor in chief of Moonsnails Magazine and The Twighlight Manor Press, I think I might know the answer.

Here are copies of a few of the rejection forms we use:

Rejection Notice: No Space At This Time; MS Put on File:

After careful consideration of your ms entitled [ms title goes here] we must regretfully inform you that we are unable to accept it at this time. The decision to deny acceptance was based on the following:At the current time we do not have space for your story in our publication. The reason for this is that all of the space slots have already been appointed for all of our upcoming issues, meaning that it may be a year or more before we well be able to use your story. However, we did like your story, and may use it in the future. Therefore I have put it on file for possible future publication. This does not mean that we can guarantee we well accept it in the future.
Because it may be a year or more before we would be able to accept your story, you are welcomed to submit this same ms to other publishers. If it is accepted by one of them, please inform us of such. If it does get published in an other magazine, we well move it to a file for possible reprint in our magazine.
If at some point in the future we do decide to use your ms, you well be notified and payment well be sent at the than current payment rate.So, you are now staring at this letter, wondering what to do next. Should you polish your ms and resubmit it? Should you submit it elsewhere instead? Should you give up writing like great aunt so-so told you to do?
Answers: maybe, yes, and no.
Yes, go ahead and polish your ms. Correct any spelling and grammar mistakes. Re-read it, possibly re-write it. When you’ve honed it to a fine point, send it out on it’s rounds again. Who knows maybe we’d like the second version of it even better, maybe not, depends on the changes made. Do not let this rejection stop you from writing though. Write more stories, get lots of practice, keep sending them to magazines, keep polishing each draft. Never listen to great aunts who tell you to give up.While your story was not accepted for publication in our magazine at this time, you do have potential and I wish you the best of luck on your writing career. Though I can not promise that we well accept your work, you are welcomed to submit other mss for our consideration in the future.Sincerely,

Rejection Notice: Inappropriate Content:

After careful consideration of your ms entitled [ms title goes here] we must regretfully inform you that we are unable to accept it at this time. The decision to deny acceptance was based on one or more of the following:

explicit sex or sexual references
graphic violence for violence sake
mention of or reference to suicide
animal, child, or elder abuse
excessive use of vulgar verbology
mention of or reference to drug use — this includes one or more of the following:

smoking
drinking
illegal drug use

At this point if you are like most writers, you are sending me a long letter of complaint, protesting that your ms was misrepresented and misjudged, followed by a list of reasons why sex, drugs and gore are essential to your story, ending with a threat of some sort at the bottom. Now, before you write back to me demanding that I force an editor to re-read your ms, let’s review the problem that got it rejected in the first place.

Our editors read the mss and than accept or reject them based on our writer’s guidelines, our current needs, and most importantly the author’s ability to capture the reader’s attention. You the author, are our client. We are your customer. It is the client’s job to keep the customer happy. Remember, the customer is always right. Why? Because it is the customer who knows what they want. The customer is the one with the money. Likewise, it is the customer who pays you for your work or rejects it and pays someone else whose work was better. You do a good job, the customer pays you to do your job. What is your job?
Your job is to write a story that we well want to buy. What can you do to make me want to buy your story? Ah-uh, now we come to the most important part of writing a story: the customer…that one whose always right…our customers. Who are our customers? The people who buy our magazine. The people who read our magazine. Those are our customers. Our job is to keep our customers happy, by buying stories they well want to read. To determine how to keep our customers happy, we first must know who are customers are.
Who are our customers? Let’s examine our magazine.
Our magazine is family friendly: i.e. read by families. Families include all ages. In other words it would not be unusual for the oldest grandmother to be seen reading a story from our magazine to her youngest grandchildren. Keeping that in mind, we do not accept stories that contain any of the above mentioned things.
We are also a small press, sold locally at a tourist resort town on the frigid North Atlantic coast of Maine. Most people who buy our magazine are often tourists looking for something to read on the beach. Others who buy us are local teachers and parents who trust us to publish stories that provide a safe, clean, enjoyable read for students.
What do our readers want? They want a story that they can enjoy reading again and again. They want action, adventure, fun, and entertainment. They want to read about heroes off on grand adventures, pirates seeking lost treasure, super heroes vanquishing dastardly villains, wars in outer space, knights in shining armor, spooky old haunted houses, the type of stuff that was popular in the 1950’s comic books is what our readers enjoy.
What our readers do not want is pointlessness. What is pointlessness? Pointlessness is ho-hum, I think I’ll ad a sex scene in here because I can’t think of anything else to write right now. Pointlessness is , yawn, the dialogue got to short, so I’ll stick in a few swear words. Pointlessness is, geeze this sure is going slow I’ll add a serial killing vampire and have him splatter entrails all over the pages. Pointlessness is, I can’t think of anything else to write, so I’ll have a teenager overdose herself than slice her wrists while jumping off a bridge, because my life is so dull that that’s what I might do tomorrow. Pointlessness is anything that adds nothing to the story plot, it is simply there to fill up empty space. That is pointlessness. Our readers look at sex, swearing, bloody violence, and suicide and say, “Ho-hum. Looks like yet another depressed teenager wrote that piece of crap. Booooring! When are they going to get some real writers to write some real stories. I’m going to cancel my subscription.”
As you can see, if we print those things we lose our readers. If we lose our readers, we lose our customers. If we lose our customers, we lose money. If we lose money we go bankrupt. If we go bankrupt we have to close down the magazine. If we close down the magazine, we end up homeless and starving. So, the author’s ability to capture the reader’s attention is a big factor in considering a ms for acceptance. Think about it this way. When you buy a magazine to read, would you pay to read something like this:

It was a dark and stormy night, the night I wrote this story. I remember it was dark and stormy because I was watching the drug dealer outside my window that night. But my story isn’t about him, no, it’s about me and my life as a teenager. This is the coolest story in the world! OMG!!!!! It is sooooooo greetarific! It is all about how my teen years were nothing but heaping loads o’ crapola. You’ll just love to reading about how my step-dad was hell and how he raped me and beat up my dog, and how my mom was on drugs (that‘s how I knew the guy outside my window was a drug dealer), and how I run away and everything! It doesn’t have a plot, but that’s okay cause I’m the main character anyways, and I’m so great the story don’t need no plot. YAH! But than I got to thinking it’d be great if it was a horror, so I turned my step dad into a blood sucking vampire and I stuck in loads + loads of blood and gore to shock your readers with too!!!! Isn’t that jus the coolest thing??? I’ll bet no body ever thought of doing that yet. Yeah I know, it’s great, don’t thank me, I’ll settle for you kissing my ass and being my eternal slave, I’m so great you know. Oh yeah and sex too, I added a sex scene on EVERY SINGLE PAGE!!!!!! Who cares about story and plot? You don’t need a story line or a plot, not when you’ve got me! Me and blood and gore and lots of sex and great in your face kiss ass @#$&(+!#@%7 swear words to fill up the space right? Am I right or what???!! Oh yeah! I’m right baby! Can ya dig it?!

Okay, so your ms wasn’t THAT bad, but I’m hoping that by writing that example in that way, it’ll open your eyes to the fact that it is very hard for editors to WANT read a ms that is submitted without the author at least stopping to think about what our readers do and do not want. Other magazines do not publish misspelled, grammatically incorrect stories that focus on me, myself and I surrounding by naked girls and serial killers on drugs and nor do we. Okay, maybe there are a few magazines that publish that sort of thing, so, send it to them, they want it, we don’t.
As I said before, the customer is always right, and we have to think of our customers first. Our customers do not want to read misspelled and grammatically incorrect stories, nor do they want to read pointless ramblings. How long do you think a reader will stay interested in your story if you haven’t actually got a story to tell? You would not read it and you know that, and editors know it even better than you do. You’d never pay money to read something like that, so how can you expect other people to buy it? That said, why should we bother to accept it?

So, you are now staring at this letter, wondering what to do next. Should you polish your ms, delete the sex, blood, and drugs and resubmit it? Should you submit it elsewhere instead? Should you give up writing like great aunt so-so told you to do?
Answers: maybe, yes, and no.
Yes, go ahead and polish your ms. Correct the spelling and grammar mistakes. Re-read it, possibly re-write it. Remove the vulgarity from it. When you’ve honed it to a fine point, send it out on it’s rounds again. Who knows maybe we’d like the second version of it maybe not, depends on the changes made. Do not let this rejection stop you from writing though. Write more stories, get lots of practice, keep sending them to magazines, keep polishing each draft. Never listen to great aunts who tell you to give up.

My suggestions:
Never submit a first draft. Polish your ms until it’s perfect. Write it, than re-write it.
Be sure that your story has a plot which readers want to read about with characters readers well want to read about. Who did it? What did they do? Why did they do it? Where did they do it? What was the result of what they did?
Every story needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning tells us what the goal of the story is. The middle tells us what the character did to reach that goal. The ending tells us what happened when the character reaches the goal.
Be sure that your main character is someone that you readers well have a reason to love.
Third person stories (he said she did) get accepted more than 80% times more often than first person stories (I said I did), and second person rarely gets accepted by anyone (you said you did). 99.8% of all best sellers are written in 3rd person.
Always spell-check
I always recommend writers use Windows XP and MSWorks Word Processor. They are simple, easy to use, beginner friendly, writer friendly, and readily available to anyone with a PC.
If you use MSWorks Word Processor, set it to spell-check, tell it to include grammar checking as well, with writing style as formal. That’ll ensure that most grammar mistakes, including passive voice, are pointed out to you so that you can correct them.
Before submitting always ask for a copy of the magazine’s writer’s guidelines.
Always read at least 2 sample issues before submitting, so that you know what type of stories the magazine is looking for. Better yet, take out a year subscription and carefully examine how the magazine changes from one issue to the next.
Know thy enemy. Read the competition. Know which writers are being published in which magazines. Ask yourself, why did they get published and not me? Examine the stories that are published. How are they different from yours? How can yours become better than theirs. Think of the world of fiction as a great war. Some writers are your allies, they well help you reach the top. Some writers are your rivals, they well climb over you to get to the top first.
Be persistent and never give up.

While your story was not appropriate for publication in our magazine, you do have potential and I wish you the best of luck on your writing career. Though I can not promise that we well accept your work, you are welcomed to submit other mss for our consideration in the future.

Sincerely,

Rejection Notice: Lack of Spelling and Grammar:

After careful consideration of your ms entitled [ms title goes here]we must regretfully advise you that we are unable to accept it at this time. The decision to deny acceptance is based on:

Lack of correct spelling and an abundance of basic grammar mistakes.

Due to the volume of mss we receive each week, we are unable to read mss which require us to first stop and make spelling and/or grammar corrections in order to be able to read it. In the 1800’s when most authors were unable to spell due to lack of education, yes, editors did correct spelling. This is not the 1800’s, it is 200 years later. In today’s world, you would be hard pressed to find an editor that would correct a writer’s spelling and grammar mistakes. Today authors didn’t grow up in log cabins 1,000 miles from civilization, and even if they do live in the Artic Circle, they type the story up on a computer, and guess what? Computers spell check, and most grammar check too.
Before your ms gets to one of our editors, it must first survive the shush pile. The slush pile is a mountain of stories, which threatens to smother our editors in a paper avalanche. Once in a while is found one or two authors who have sent their 4th or 5th draft, a well polished draft with mistakes corrected, and the ms printed neatly and formatted correctly…and editors can actually read it. Those one or two that we can read because they are clean and neat with no mistakes… those are the ones we read, because those survive the slush pile and make it on to an editor’s desk.
Which mss drown in the slush pile? If the paper is dirty, crumpled, and torn, it drowns. If the font is big and flowery, it gets tossed. If the font is smaller than 12pt, it seeps into the unknown. If the paper is scented and has confetti flying out of each page, it gets fumigated. If the paper is pink, red, yellow, blue, or any other color not white, it gets tossed before it gets a chance to blind the editor. If it reads like a dry collage text book, it gets recycled quickly…we don‘t want our editors sleeping on the job. If there are 10 or more grammar and/or spelling mistakes on the first page, it gets tossed. Of every 100 mss we receive, more than three thirds are tossed in the trash as unreadable. Sadly, your ms has fallen into the unreadable category. As a result, your ms did not survive the slush pile and went unread by our editors.
Now, before you write back to me demanding that I force an editor to read your ms, let’s review the problem that got it rejected in the first place.
Our editors read the ms and accept or reject them based on our writer’s guidelines, our current needs, and most importantly the author’s ability to capture the reader’s attention. You the author, are our client. We are your customer. It is the client’s job to keep the customer happy. Remember, the customer is always right. Why? Because it is the customer who knows what they want. The customer is the one with the money. The customer is the one who pays you for your work or rejects it and pays someone else whose work was better. What is your job? Your job is to write a story that we well want to buy. Now than, what can you do to make me want to buy your story? Ah-uh, now we come to the most important part of writing a story: the customer…that one whose always right…our customers. Who are our customers? The people who buy our magazine. The people who read our magazine. Those are our customers. Our job is to keep our customers happy, by buying stories they well want to read.
The author’s ability to capture the reader’s attention is a big factor in considering a ms for acceptance. Think about it this way. When you buy a magazine to read, would you pay to read something like this:

dis is da coolest storee i’s even did wrote!!!! OMG!!!!! It is sooooooo greetarific! it is all about how my teen years were noting but heaping loads o’ crapola, you’ll just lov at read about how my step-dad was hell, and i run away and everting! it doesn’t have a plot, but that’s okay cause I’m the main character anyways, and I’m so great the storee don’t need no plot. I stuck in loads + loads of blood and gore to shock the readers wid too!!!! Is’nt tat jus the coolest thing??? Ya I knoe, it’s great,,, oh yeah and sex too, I added a sex sence on EVERY SINGLE PAGE!!!!!! Who cares about story and plot? you don’t neeed a story line or a plot, not when you’ve got me and blood and gore and lots of sex and great@#$&(+!#@%7 swear words to fill up the space right? Am I right or what???!! can ya dig it?! howe loong do ya tink a weeder will stae intrested in yor storee ifing dey kan’t weed wat U al wote? and you hav‘nt actualy got a story to tell ? “YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!“ U wood knot weed it and yos no that, & us editers no dat even betta tan U doo, so why wood we bodder to weed it? even if it had been a goode storee, we wood not have nonw for all the mistakes… !!!! it jus 2 bad that mor wriders did knot spell an grammer checke afor dey submit

Okay, so your ms wasn’t THAT bad, but I’m hoping that by writing that example in that way, it’ll open your eyes to the fact that it is very hard for editors to read a ms that is submitted without the author first spell-checking it at least. A typo here and there is understandable and overlooked, but how often do you see a magazine publish a story in a complete lack of grammar? Other magazines do not publish misspelled, grammatically incorrect stories and nor do we. As I said before, the customer is always right, and we have to think of our customers first. Our customers do not want to read misspelled and grammatically incorrect stories.

So, you are now staring at this letter, wondering what to do next. Should you polish your ms and resubmit it? Should you submit it elsewhere. Should you give up writing like great aunt so-so told you to do?

Answers: maybe, yes, and no.
Yes, go ahead and polish your ms. Correct the spelling and grammar mistakes. Re-read it, possibly re-write it. When you’ve honed it to a fine point, send it out on it’s rounds again. Write more stories, get lots of practice, keep sending them to magazines, keep polishing each draft. Never listen to great aunts who tell you to give up.

My suggestions:
Never submit a first draft. Polish your ms until it’s perfect.
Be sure that your story has a plot which readers want to read about characters readers well want to read about.
Always spell-check
I always recommend writers use Windows XP and MSWorks Word Processor. They are simple, easy to use, beginner friendly, writer friendly, and readily available to anyone with a PC.
If you use MSWorks Word Processor, set it to spell-check, tell it to include grammar checking as well, with writing style as formal. That’ll ensure that most grammar mistakes, including passive voice, are pointed out to you so that you can correct them.
Before submitting always ask for a copy of the magazine’s writer’s guidelines.
Always read at least 2 sample issues before submitting, so that you know what type of stories the magazine is looking for. Better yet, take out a year subscription and carefully examine how the magazine changes from one issue to the next.

Know thy enemy. Read the competition. Know which writers are being published in which magazines. Ask yourself, why did they get published and not me? Examine the stories that are published. How are they different from yours? How can your become better than theirs. Think of the world of fiction as a great war. Some writers are your allies, they well help you reach the top. Some writers are your rivals, they well climb over you to get to the top first.
Be persistent and never give up.

You have potential and I wish you the best of luck on your writing career. Though I can not promise that we well ever accept your work, you are welcomed to submit other mss in the future.

Sincerely,

As I said these are premade forms. Why do we have premade forms? Because we do not accept certain things, and no matter how many time we tell people that we do not accept certain things, they still send them out anyways, thinking “well, they well make an eception for me”… no, not even if you were Stephen King, would we make an exception.

Baiscly, write the best you can, edit it yourself as best you can, always read submission guidelines carefully, and send your ms out to the places that WANT the type of work you write. Editors are desperatly seeking good writers, they want to accept your work, you just have to find the right editor for what you wrote.

~~EK

Writing Tip of the Day: March 28, 2007: Editing

Never resist editing. Your writing isn’t etched in stone and can always be improved for the reader. Some of you are now throwing stones, and type hate emails for me. I know, I hate editing just as much as any other writer, but fact is, it must be done, so you might as well drop that stone and get editing. Think about it this way: If your writing is as perfect as you think it is already, than editing well only make it that much better, right?

Why do you resist writing? Fear? Fear of what? Maybe you ought to write a story about a writer with a phobia of editing. Point out how crazy his phobia is and how it disrupts his writing career. This’ll do wonders for changing the way you edit your stories.

If you really have a problem with editing, there are people whose job it is to edit your work… they are known as: editors. Editors are not a thing to fear. Editors are people who love books just as much as you do, and they  want to see a great piece of fiction get printed. So wither you do your own editing or you get an editor to do it for you, never resist the art of editing. Your readers well be glad you did.

Writing Tip of the Day: March 27, 2007

Write with wisdom and careful thought, because in publishing, haste often makes waste. Have you ever stopped to think on this? You must remember that before your book gets to it’s readers, it first has to get past the agents and editors. The slush pile is as wide as it is deep,  and the only manuscripts that survive are those that were well thought out and carefully edited. Don’t be tempted to send off your first draft, fresh off the printer. Let it collect some dust for a few days. Edit it up clean and neat, and make sure that it’s the best it can possibly be, before sending it out. Remember, write with wisdom and careful thought, because in publishing, haste often makes waste, and you can’t afford to waste time or words.

~~EK